The Dixie Chicks’ big win at the Grammy Awards on Sunday exposed ideological tensions between the music industry’s Nashville establishment and the broader, more diverse membership of the Recording Academy, which chooses the Grammy winners, according to voters and music executives interviewed afterward.

To some, the voting served not only as a referendum on President George Bush’s handling of the Iraq war, but also on what was perceived as country music’s rejection — and radio’s censorship — of the trio.

Jeff Ayeroff, a longtime music executive and an academy member, said the resounding endorsement of the group reflected the fact that the academy represents “the artist community, which was very angry at what radio did, because it was not very American.” Ayeroff said he voted for the Dixie Chicks in at least one category.

At the awards on Sunday, the band — Natalie Maines, Martie Maguire and Emily Robison — swept all five of the Grammy categories in which it was nominated, including the top three — Album, Record and Song of the Year — the first time all three have been swept in 13 years.

The awards amounted to vindication for the Dixie Chicks, who found their career sidetracked in 2003 after vocalist Maines told a London concert audience shortly before the invasion of Iraq that the band was “ashamed” that the President hailed from their home state, Texas. In the furor that followed, country radio programmers pulled the multiplatinum-selling trio’s music from the airwaves and rallied listeners to destroy their CDs.

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